National affordable housing leader John Emmeus Davis of Burlington, Vermont with Marianne MacQueen of Yellow Springs Home, Inc., who partnered with the Village of Yellow Springs to bring Davis to town. (Photo by Megan Bachman)

Affordable Housing Expert Promotes Land Trust Model

John Emmeus Davis of the Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, Vermont met with a group of community members Monday morning to promote community land trusts as a way to achieve affordable housing in Yellow Springs.

Davis proposed that the village offer incentives to developers to guarantee a certain portion of houses they build are affordable, such as by waiving fees. He also urged collaboration among organizations focusing on greenspace preservation and affordable housing.

“Both organizations treat land as a community resource rather than a speculative commodity – that’s the common ground,” he said.

Davis praised the community for its role in development of the community land trust model and for its progress on affordable housing.

“You’ve got an extraordinarily vital community and a remarkably successful land trust with broad based relationships,” Davis said, praising Home, Inc. for building 20 affordable homes in Yellow Springs and attracting 300 members to the organization.

For an in-depth article on Davis’ visit, see this week’s print edition of the YS News.

It will be interesting to see if YS can put more energy into affordable housing efforts. A good question to ask is “What keeps housing costs so high is Yellow Springs and who benfits from this?” It seems that the eleavated costs of housing is just a given not to be questioned or challenged.